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Talk:Shota Rustaveli
I'm thinking we might want to remove reference to his namesake. Was he named for a historical figure? I'm almost certain; it's a very unlikely coincidence. Is it remotely relevant to his character? Not in the least. If he'd been the poet instead of Voroshilov, that would be one thing, but as it is. . . . I would ignore it but for the fact that we've got a fair number of characters in the same boat, and he's the only one who has attention called to his namesake. Lucien Galtier was the founding father of St Paul, Minnesota; that has nothing to do with the character, and it's not mentioned. Hell, Irving Morrell is named after Erwin Rommel; that is relevant to the character, but it doesn't get mentioned in the article. Ditto Glen Johnson. Then there are people like Anthony Dresser and Charlie Lynton and the notorious Kurt Haldweim, who do have literary notes. Since their namesakes are directly relevant to their characters, they would certainly appear to be a different beast. Hmm, maybe we should come up with a formal, consistent policy for all of these cases. I'll hold off on removing the reference to the poet until we do. Turtle Fan 01:35, September 6, 2010 (UTC) :I think the literary allusions page may bring a resolution the Rustaveli question. He's obscure outside of Georgia, but that's what the page is for. ::Oh, look at that, he's already on there. Turtle Fan 20:05, September 6, 2010 (UTC) :A policy on naming would be good. Nearly every fictional character in MwIH shares a name with a real person, near as I can tell, but as you say, so what? TR 15:58, September 6, 2010 (UTC) ::Maybe this could be fodder for another Trivia page? Those are always fun. Turtle Fan 20:05, September 6, 2010 (UTC) I'm bumping this up. In light of the Gottwald issue, it might be a good time to reconsider the points made (and inconclusively dropped) in this discussion. Turtle Fan (talk) 15:50, August 30, 2015 (UTC) :I think something you suggested regarding namesake being somehow relevant to the character is probably the best starting point. I think the best rule to employ would be to first ask the question "does the fictional character have more in common with their historical namesake than just a name?" If the answer is no, then it's probably not worth creating the literary comment or otherwise draw attention to the shared name within the article itself. Maybe in the literary page, or whatever. :But I think a second question worth asking is "Will the shared name be a source of confusion?" That's where Fictional Klement Gottwald (hereafter "FKG") comes in. The problem with FKG (as I said in the Red Bosses post) is that this represents the first instance where a fictional character exists alongside his historical namesake, and his historical namesake is pretty important. So we're going to have to make a pretty big show of naming the fictional character's article and stating in the comment page that this isn't the historical character. If FKG appeared in a work set 50 years in either direction, we wouldn't care. So while there will almost certainly be no connection between the two (and I won't be surprised if FKG vanishes altogether in THW 2), there is a reasonable basis for confusion. ::The complicating factor is that FKG is an actual character (albeit a minor one, probably so much so that he'll just get an entry on the Minor Characters list) whereas HKG hasn't appeared, and hasn't been mentioned except implicitly as a member of that vaguely defined "red bosses" group. I think the Klement Gottwald page should be a disambiguation, with links to Klement Gottwald (Fictional Character) (which would just be a redirect to the Minor Characters page) and Klement Gottwald (Historical). At the top of each article, a little note explaining the difference and offering a link to the other. Boudicca is not exactly in the same situation, but I would submit that it presents a useful model to follow. Turtle Fan (talk) 18:55, August 31, 2015 (UTC) :Ironically, aside from the FKG issue, I don't think question two will come up that often. TR (talk) 17:38, August 30, 2015 (UTC) ::I was thinking that Glenn Johnson is probably worth doing a little something with, at least now that we're going to be doing it for Gottwald. But yeah, Gottwald's the only one who's added urgency. Turtle Fan (talk) 18:55, August 31, 2015 (UTC)